


phantom

by ndnickerson



Category: Nancy Drew - Carolyn Keene
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, F/M, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Male-Female Friendship, Neighbors, Past Injury, Permanent Injury, Traumatic Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-29
Updated: 2014-11-29
Packaged: 2018-02-27 09:49:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2688308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ndnickerson/pseuds/ndnickerson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the apartment beside his is rented by a mysterious individual who never emerges, Ned can't help investigating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	phantom

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Imagine Person A of your OTP is a recluse and rarely leaves their apartment. Person B lives in the apartment next door to Person A and is secretly in love with A. Person B leaves Person A little notes on A’s apartment door (wishing them a good day or what have you) or attached to little gifts for Person A every day. Person A collects said notes and gifts and eventually starts to leave notes on Person B’s door. Whether they become an actual couple eventually is up to you.

People half-joke that it's haunted.

Ned would almost be convinced, but if a ghost lives in the apartment beside his, he or she must be hungry. He sees grocery deliveries on the weekends, and sometimes he sees packages left at the door. One day he couldn't help it; he took a look at the name, just to see if they had been misdelivered. Keyla and Monroe moved out four months ago, and he hasn't seen anyone come in or out since then, just deliveries.

_Nancy Drew._

The name sounds familiar; it rings a distant bell, but he doesn't think anything of it. As soon as he walks into his own apartment, Mike or Howie greets him with the game already blaring on the television or a question about dinner, and it's easy to forget, to let it slide.

He's home from work one Friday with a terrible cold when he hears the delivery man knock loudly at a door, and is disoriented enough to think it's theirs. He stumbles out of bed, head pounding, nose running, throat on fire, and staggers to the door, already doing mental calculations about when his next dose of medication needs to be to keep him from drinking the pain away.

"I need a signature," the delivery man is saying.

"Leave it by the door."

"Ma'am, I'm sorry—"

Ned feels like his fevered, throbbing head is full of a dark miasma of cold germs. It takes him a few seconds before he wipes his nose and calls out, voice clogged. "Hey. I'll sign for it."

The delivery guy looks unhappy, but at least this alternative is better than the "none" he had before. Ned signs for the envelope—it looks official, and he sees her name again as he glances at the front—and the delivery guy strides down the hallway, gazing at his cell phone.

Ned sneezes and sighs before he props the envelope in front of his neighbor's door. "It's by the door," he says. "I have a really bad cold, so you might want to disinfect it before you open it." He pauses at his own still-open door. "I'll leave you alone now."

Her reply is so soft that he almost doesn't hear it, as the door is closing behind him. "Thanks."

That afternoon he feels a little better, and he pulls up a search on his cell phone before the headache can set in again. He skips the first few hits, and reads about her career. _Nancy Drew, amateur detective, foils extortionist... Teen sleuth nabs jewel thieves... Drew finds missing student safe_.

The first hits are what he remembers most, though. The datelines are almost a year earlier. They hadn't been sure she would survive, not after what happened. _Where is she now?_ a headline pondered two months ago, saying that she's vanished without a trace, and speculation is rampant: that the injuries were too much, that she's permanently abroad...

But they must not have been looking too hard, because he has found her without trying. Plenty of other people are bleeding and dying and sleeping their way onto the front page; no one really needs to find her, apparently.

That night he can't sleep, since he slept so much during the day. Howie and Mike have gone to their rooms, and their place is eerily still, but he can still hear footfalls on the floor above theirs, the cadence of distant conversations.

Then a quiet voice edges in, sweet and a little husky, coming from the other side of the wall. He can't make out the words, just a haunting tune, one that is occasionally broken by what he fears are sobs.

In the morning the memory almost doesn't come back; it feels like a dream, and God knows the Nyquil left him loopy. But he thinks it was real, and it can't hurt...

_Hope I didn't infect you with this awful cold. Have a good weekend, neighbor. -N_

He slides it under her door, and he has no intention of doing anything else; she's obviously trying to keep a low profile, and she likely wouldn't be pleased by his knowledge.

But she hasn't changed her name or decided to use a pseudonym, and he wonders if a part of her, however small, wants to be found by the world that moved on months ago.

He receives no response to his card, but he doesn't expect it. Three days later, once he's feeling better, he walks by a park and sees the trees all orange, gold and red with fall leaves, feels the sun on his face, and he suddenly thinks of her. She never comes out of her apartment. She isn't seeing this, unless it's through her window.

He snaps a few photos with his cell phone, and when he's home that night he downloads the photos and puts them on a page, all together. _If you want to take a walk sometime, I'd be happy to go with you. -N._ He considers it for a few minutes, then shrugs and prints it out as is.

He doesn't feel pity for her, but sympathy. If he were stranded, depending on grocery deliveries to feed himself, with no one around... maybe she has several friends who contact her online or via text message, but he's never seen anyone come by, and it seems incredibly lonely to him. He doesn't know what he would do without his friends and family.

Even though she doesn't respond to his messages, his notes wishing her a good day, the photos of the city he takes, the small gifts he finds that are small enough to fit in the space between her door and the floor, he knows she's still there; when he wakes early in the morning to go to the restroom he can sometimes hear her on the other side of the wall, sometimes just the low drone of her television, sometimes the haunting sound of her voice. He peeks under the door and sees that his messages aren't just piling up, so maybe she's reading them.

He sees on the news that a big winter storm is coming, and he puts together a little package for her, a fleece blanket, a few candles, some food she won't need to reheat if the power goes out. _Stay warm and safe, and if you need anything, I'm next door. -N_

"So what was that?" Mike asks when Ned walks in after leaving the package at her door. "Someone deliver it to the wrong apartment?"

"No," Ned says slowly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Uh, just... wanted to make sure she's going to be okay."

"She?" Howie's eyebrows go up as he looks up from his laptop.

Ned shrugs. "We've never met."

"So what's the story?"

He shakes his head. "There's nothing to tell."

That night he brings up the clearest photo of her that he's found; she's on the arm of a handsome man with brown hair, and she's alight with happiness. She looks beautiful, and he feels strange, studying the photo and knowing that she likely doesn't look that way anymore. The man in the photograph is about her age and she has no brother. But Ned hasn't seen him come around. He hasn't seen anyone come around.

He remembers her a little, from that night, but they were never introduced—five years ago, a charity auction that his parents dragged him to with a little protest. She was always surrounded by a group of people, he seems to remember; he heard her name with an air of awe in half-overheard conversations, and he was jealous of her escort without ever seeing him very clearly. She seemed to radiate light and happiness.

His stomach twists when he thinks of the sad sound of her lilting voice.

In the morning he wakes to the sound of a door closing next door; he turns the light on and shuffles into the blue pre-dawn, and sees a white rectangle on the floor just this side of their door. He picks it up. _Ned._

When he opens it he finds only a sheet of lined paper, the letters formed in even cursive.

_Thank you._

_-N_

Two weeks before Thanksgiving, Ned attaches a note to a small foil-wrapped chocolate turkey. _We'll be making a little dinner two days before Thanksgiving. You can come over, if you want. Or I could bring you some leftovers if you don't want any company._ He pauses before filling out the last line. _Or it could be just us. -N_

Her reply comes three days later. _Three bachelors. I'm expecting Hawaiian pizza and beer. -N_

_Let me prove you wrong. -N_

_I'm not ready to be around people yet. I'm sorry. -N_

_Well, if you change your mind, just tell me. I'll make you a container and leave it at your door. But if you let me, I'll show you—I'm not people, just me, and I care about you. -N_

He waits and waits for her reply, and fears that he's scared her off for good. The guys don't understand why Ned wants to have an elaborate meal that Tuesday night, since they'll be heading home to their families, to turkey and stuffing and casseroles the next day. But Mike uses one of his mother's incredibly easy recipes to make a pork roast in the slow cooker, and Howie makes green bean casserole and sweet potatoes, and Ned puts together the brownies from an instant mix. Howie and Mike are groaning and satisfied, sluggish on the couch, after the meal, but Ned is putting together a container.

"For your phantom girlfriend?"

Ned shakes his head. "Look, she might not have anybody else to do this for her," he says. "It's Thanksgiving. And this is nothing."

Mike holds his hands up, palms-out. "Chill, man. No big deal."

He walks over to her door, and every step heightens his anxiety. Maybe she's already headed home to be with her family, and that's why he hasn't heard from her. Maybe she just left her television or a radio on to deter thieves. If it's still left there in the morning, he'll know.

He's about to bend down and put the container on the floor in front of her door when he hears the locks click back. He straightens just in time to see the door open, and his heart is in his throat.

He doesn't know how she looks now. Her face is obscured now, too; she has a hood up and pulled tight around her face, so that he can just see the glittering of her eyes in the shadow.

"Ned," she says softly.

"Nancy," he says, and he forgets everything, even the container in his hand, for a moment. "Hi. Um... well, it's no gourmet meal, but it's good." He extends it to her.

She doesn't reach for it, and his heart sinks a little. "I," she says finally, and clears her throat. "Would you... like to come in?"

He nods. "I would."

He recognizes the furniture as pieces she would have ordered and somehow put together herself. The decor is sparse and the rooms are dim. He wonders if it's not just anxiety about her appearance, but maybe sensitivity to light, other repercussions from her injuries. When he sees the fleece throw he gave her before the storm, draped across the back of the couch, he can't help smiling.

She sits down at her kitchen table, her head ducked so he can't see into her face. "You can sit down," she says quietly.

"Can I get you anything? Something to drink?"

She chuckles. "I think that's my line. I just..."

He stands and walks the few feet toward the cabinets. "Just tell me where to find the glasses and I'll pour you something."

He knows it's not completely innocent curiosity, but while they're exchanging weightless conversation during her meal, he can't help wanting to see her face. She's so careful to keep it turned away from him and obscured that his heart aches. If he could just show her that he won't react the way she thinks he will... but maybe he's not as strong as he thinks.

He says it five different ways in his head before he thinks he has it right. "I'll be back here on Friday, and my mother always sends me home with plenty of leftovers. If you're interested in something a lot tastier than this."

She sighs. "They're begging me to come home," she murmurs. "If I go back I feel like I'll never leave."

"So you might be gone."

She hangs her head a little more. "How do you tell someone who loves you that much..."

"That you feel like you're being smothered?"

She looks up at him. Her face is in shadow. "Are your parents like that?"

He shakes his head. "Have your parents always been protective?"

They move together to her living room in front of the television and she tells him about her parents, her mother who died when she was little and her father, who wasn't protective, not until he saw her in the hospital after the incident and told her that he would do everything to make sure she was okay again.

She's not okay. She does what she can while making as little contact with the outside world as possible, but she wants to help people and she's so frustrated and scared. She hates her skittishness and the way she looks; if she goes out into the world, people won't see _her_ anymore. They will only see the scars.

He wishes he could say she's wrong, but he doesn't know. When he sees that she is obviously tired, he wishes her a good night and she insists on walking him to the door.

"Thanks," she says, and he doesn't question it; he reaches for her and wraps his arms around her, and the way she tenses and relaxes tells him that she hasn't felt arms around her in a long time.

"Sleep well, Nancy."

"Thanks, Ned. I mean it."

When he comes back from his parents' house early on Friday with his mother's segmented leftover containers in a cooler, he picks up two and walks over to Nancy's apartment. He knocks on her door, and doesn't hear anything; he knocks one more time, and hears footsteps approaching, so quiet he has to strain to hear them.

"It's me."

"Be right back." She's wearing her hoodie again when she opens the door a minute later. "You didn't have to..."

"I know. But I wanted to."

"Thanks."

After their third dinner together, after the third hug at the door and stroke of his palm down her back, Ned makes a decision. He hopes it doesn't upset her, but he goes to her father and asks to set up an appointment with him, telling him that he just wants a little legal advice. He's told that Mr. Drew's trial schedule is very busy, that he won't be able to meet until after the holidays. But Ned can't wait that long. Letters work with Nancy, so he sends one to her father.

Mr. Drew's response comes to Ned's workplace by express mail two days later. As soon as Cindy hands it to him, Ned rips open the envelope, unable to even consider waiting until he's on a break.

_Thank you for contacting me. My schedule prevents me from setting up a face-to-face meeting in any reasonable time frame. As to my daughter, yes, I do still reside in River Heights; yes, she is more than welcome to come home when she wishes. I've known where she was since she moved into your apartment house. She's also been very explicit about the desire to maintain her own privacy, and I have to respect that, as much as it hurts me._

_Please respect her privacy too. I know many news outlets did all they could to find her, to startle her into some salacious admission or snap some photos of her soon after the incident. The attention has died down some, but we would be delighted to see her when and if, and where, she wishes._

_I wish you the best, Mr. Nickerson._

_Carson Drew_

\--

In the light of the fiber-optic tree he gave her as an early Christmas present, the hypnotic swirl of colors thrown against the wall as the lights cycle, she tells him about the incident. His mug of hot chocolate grows cold in his cupped palms and his heart aches for her.

Even now, she wakes in the middle of the night and feels it burning again; she tells him softly that she sings herself to sleep after, comforted by the reminder of one of her few memories of her mother doing that for her, and he realizes that's what he's heard through the wall. With the overhead lights off and the darkness obscuring her face, she's relaxed enough to let down her hood. Her hair is short—he's sure it was trimmed close or shaved off when she was recovering from her injuries—and he sees the faintest light touch the ridged scar tissue, and he knows what he wasn't sure of before. To him, it doesn't matter.

He moves beside her on the couch, pulls her into his arms, and she rests the rigid, ruined skin of her cheek against his neck and cries.

"I should have saved her."

The sweet, bright starlet, barely sixteen, had come to Nancy for help when a stalker had managed to break through her security. Nancy had been too sympathetic to turn the case down; she had discussed plans and contingencies and strategies with the security staff, run thorough background checks, but it hadn't been enough. When the tabloids broke the false news that she had reunited with an old boyfriend, her stalker had become enraged.

Nancy had tried to step between the girl and the attack, to shield her. She had only been partially successful. The starlet had died three days later from terrible injuries; Nancy had pulled through, but she would never be the same.

"It wasn't your fault. You know it wasn't your fault."

"She came to me for help. I tried so hard..."

She pours it out as he rubs her back and holds her, and he repeats it over and over, and he believes it. What happened wasn't her fault. She did everything she could, and the tragedy was that it wasn't enough—and that no punishment will take away the damage that man caused when he flew at a young girl, enraged, armed with acid and a knife.

And then, slowly, he feels her begin to put the wall back in place, the false stoicism that has kept her from coming to pieces so many times. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have..."

"You should have." When he feels her shift in his arms, he has to let her go; he knows that. He wishes he didn't. "I'm so sorry that happened to you. I'm sorry she died. But that doesn't mean that what happened to you isn't terrible too."

She clears her throat and pulls the hood up again; she sniffles, and the tracks of her tears are shining, turned faint gold and brilliant red from the fiber-optic lights. "I'm sure you're tired," she murmurs.

He leaves her with a hug at the door, wishing he knew what to say, but nothing comes.

That night, he doesn't know what wakes him until he hears it, the words indistinct, the melody stumbling as she sobs, and he places his palm against the wall between him and wishes it wasn't there.

\--

His family and friends have long joked that their favorite Christmas presents are the ones from Ned. He's so good at finding that one thing they never knew they wanted, that lost memento from childhood that brings back a wave of nostalgia, the indispensable gift they use four times in the following month. He just has a knack for it, most of the time.

When inspiration strikes him for her, he hopes he's right.

He was never great at playing guitar. He was okay at it; he knew enough to fake his way through a few songs, and generally by that point in the party the people around him were too drunk to notice the missed notes or wrong chords. He finds the music online and practices just the movements of his fingers ten times before he even attempts it the first time.

The following night, when he wakes, he wonders if her quiet voice did it, or if he wakes up at the same time she does. It doesn't matter, though, not really. He sits down as close to the wall as he can, still clad in the boxers he slept in, his dark hair rumpled as he picks up the guitar. He closes his eyes and puts his fingers against the strings.

"'You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray. You'll never know, dear, how much I love you, so please don't take my sunshine away.'"

He sings it quietly, to keep from waking Howie and Mike, but he hopes it's enough to carry through the wall and reach her. He pauses once he finishes the first time, but he hears nothing from the other side of the wall, like she's waiting.

He sings it twice more, and at the end of it, five heartbeats later, he hears the faint tap of her fingertips against the wall, directly in front of him. "Thank you," she says, her voice muffled by all that stands between them.

He taps back a few times. "You're welcome."

\--

She's waiting for him the next day; she has to be. He's barely passed her door when he hears the locks clicking; he stops, turning to look at the peephole. His day has been terrible. He's exhausted, and his company is preparing for an audit, so everything has to be in apple-pie order, and his supervisor is losing his shit over every little thing.

The door opens, but only barely. Her invitation is clear, though silent.

He runs his fingers through his hair before he pushes open the door. The blinds at the other end of the apartment are open, for once. She stands a few feet away from the couch, her hands jammed into the pockets of her hoodie, her face obscured as always. She looks ill at ease.

"Thank you. For last night." She sounds like the words are being pulled from her, painfully.

He shakes his head and steps inside. "It was nothing," he says, suddenly feeling more self-conscious than he did the first time Mike and Howie overheard his practicing.

She shakes her head. "I think we've been misunderstanding each other," she says, and he closes the door, not wanting them to be overheard. "I think I need to do this. And if I don't see you anymore, I understand."

He tilts his head as she turns away from him, walking toward the blinds. The winter sunlight is cold and glaring, but it provides more light than the rest of her apartment. She has her face turned toward it and away from him when she reaches up and sweeps the hood off her hair.

Her hair is just as short as he was expecting, darker red than he saw in the photo of her with her old boyfriend. The sun hasn't painted streaks of gold in it, not in a long time.

She doesn't move, though, and so he walks around the table, toward her. He sees the pale curve of her unblemished cheek first, faintly rosy with self-consciousness.

Then she takes a breath and turns toward him, and he sees defiance in her face, and fear. She defies him to shy away from her, to recoil as everyone else probably did. She's afraid he will.

He almost winces in sympathy, but he knows that would be a mistake. Instead he puts down his case and takes a step toward her, taking off his gloves and putting them in his pockets. She's studying his face too; she probably hasn't seen him clearly, at least not very often.

He takes her face in his hands, feeling the faint warm pulse of her blood beneath her skin, feeling the rigid scar tissue under his other palm. Her eyes widen, shining with tears.

"Nothing has changed," he tells her softly. "You've always been beautiful to me, Nancy, and you always will be. And I love you."

She searches his eyes, sensing a trap, but he brushes away the tears that fall from her lashes, from her blue eye and her sightless one. She makes a loud, hoarse noise and clings to him when he wraps her in his arms, and only then does he realize it was a sob.

The last man she thought loved her, when he saw her this way, walked away from her. That's what she thought he would do. That's what she dares him to do.

"I love you," he says again, and kisses the crown of her head, strokes her damaged skin so gently. "And I'm not going to walk away."

\--

That New Year's Eve, Ned takes her home. She's told him how the paparazzi would sit outside her father's house, doing their best to catch a grainy shot of her through the blinds or the passenger window of a car; they would harangue her father when he was on his way to work and she would hear it from her bedroom, and she could see all her days all the same, for the rest of her life, trapped and guilty and sad. She will never go unnoticed in a crowd. She will never have the anonymity that made her job easier, ever again.

But he's checked with her father and when they pull up, she knows all the cars she sees parked along the street. She thinks she's expecting it; she thinks she's steeled for it, her hood clinched tight around her face and her head down to keep anyone from taking surreptitious photos as she walks in.

They're all there. Bess and George and Helen, Hannah and her father, Mr. Peterson and Nikki and her family, Ira Dixon, Joe Swenson and his wife and Honey. She's relieved to see that Brenda Carlton didn't somehow wrangle or bluff her way into this. All the people here knew her as she was, before.

All of them except Michael, and she knows what her heart has been telling her for months now is true: he won't be back.

Honey pats her scarred cheek so gently and tells her that she hopes she feels better soon. Her friends hug her, but their embraces are gentle, as though they fear causing more damage. Her father's house is beautiful, still decorated for Christmas, and her father's eyes are bright when he looks at her.

She can't put it in words, because it will hurt him. If she stays here, she will never leave. His love and his need to protect her will build a wall around her. As lonely as she has been, she knows it's true.

She and Ned have no firm plans—he's joked that their new year's meal should be Hawaiian pizza and sparkling cider—but within an hour she's looking for him, her heart still in her throat every time he catches her eye. She's not used to being visible and exposed for this long, and she wants to be in her apartment again, where no one who could hurt her will find her.

Then he walks in, tall and handsome, white teeth gleaming in his grin; he shivers in his coat, but when she sees his face, she sees the flinch that she always looked for and never seen in Ned's face. Michael will never look at her and see anything other than who she was.

He had her heart, once. She would have given him anything, anything at all. She wore his ring and saw a future for them, one that is closed to her now.

He kisses her on her undamaged cheek and his gaze is full of pity. Maybe he thought her injuries were less severe than he remembered; maybe he thought the graft surgery was successful, that she would look like her old self. The surgeons have told her that she will never look like her old self again, and as hard as it's been, she's accepted that.

"Oh, Red. My poor girl. My poor, sweet girl."

She shakes her head. She can't count the number of smiles she's faked, to make things easier for people. All the times she's said she's fine when she's been anything but. Michael thinks she didn't see the look of disgust and horror on his face when her injuries were revealed to him for the first time. He thinks that telling her he needed time was enough. Oh, what a fool she's sometimes been.

He could have found her. Her father and her true friends did, sending her encouraging messages, offering to meet her for lunch or dinner, to take her out. Twice she's been to the movies with Bess and George, wrapped up tight against prying eyes, but she's still not comfortable being out in the world, startling away from sharp gazes and sudden movements.

Michael didn't try. Because she was never as important to him as he was to her.

Then she feels it at the small of her back, the light brush of his fingers. "Michael, I doubt you've met Ned," she says, reaching behind her and grabbing his hand. "Ned, this is Michael."

Ned offers his hand silently, and she sees that his jaw is set. Ned recognizes him, somehow, or he's reacting to the pity and condescension in Michael's face and the tension in her own.

Michael shakes Ned's hand, looking almost bemused. "One of your old friends?"

"One of my new friends," she says, her voice hard. "I think I'd like some more punch... so nice to see you again. Maybe we can do this again in another year?"

She walks away while he's still sputtering, Ned's hand in hers, and he squeezes it gently. "'Poor, sweet girl,'" he mimics under his breath, sounding just as disgusted as she feels.

"Yeah." She's shivering a little as the adrenaline wears off. "That pineapple and ham pizza is actually starting to sound pretty good, Nickerson."

"Yeah?" He smiles and squeezes her hand gently. "Well, normally we'd have to get three, but Howie and Mike are out with their girlfriends tonight. We'll just have to have our own private party for two."

She gives him a half-smile. One side of her face is always frozen now. "Sounds perfect."

\--

Nancy is only half-asleep when she hears it.

Andrew is changed, fed, and burped; he should be fine, but he suffers from colic, the kind that keeps Nancy and Ned awake and exasperated for hours. He hates naps. He hates sleeping at night. And then, just when she is at the point of screaming, his face relaxes into a toothless grin and her heart aches with love.

She hears Ned's voice, and knows without looking that the bed is empty beside her, that the cradle is empty too, and she knows where she will find them.

She drags her robe on, yawning, sliding her feet into her slippers, and her cold palm touches the scarred side of her face as the nerves burn. Even after the last surgery, the surgeons said that phantom pain might never go away. On bad days, she sees herself as a broken china doll, part of her face still stiff and dead. But she's alive, and with him she's glad to be.

She passes the closed door to her office, where she works from home, taking requests over the internet to help find evidence against people who harass and stalk so she can pass it on to attorneys and law enforcement. She's yawning again when she pauses in the doorway of the living room.

Andrew is fascinated by all the lights on the Christmas tree, and so Ned brought him here, swaddled him in blankets and sat him down at the foot of the couch so he couldn't roll off and hurt himself. They've tried everything with him, late-night car rides, a car seat on top of the washing machine, jiggling relaxation chairs, to no avail. They have found one thing that sometimes works, though.

Ned isn't holding Andrew because Ned is holding his guitar, and she smiles at the soft, lulling sound of his song as she walks into the living room and sits down beside her son. His dark eyes are wide with wonder as he turns to look at her; his face is flushed from sobs and wails, and tears are drying on his cheeks, but he seems happy now. She gently picks him up and holds him in her lap, wrapping the blanket around them to ward off the chill and rocking him as he listens to his father.

"'Soft the drowsy hours are creeping, Hill and dale in slumber sleeping, I my loved ones' watch am keeping, All through the night.'"

Ned begins the song over again, and Nancy sees him smile at her before she returns it, tips her head back and closes her eyes. Ned is the one who sings her to sleep now, too, holding her when she wakes gasping, feeling like her skin is on fire again. Ned has been one of her biggest supporters for so long, and she tried so hard to keep him from paying attention to her. She tried so hard to scare him away, knowing that as much as it might hurt, losing him the way she had Michael would have been worse.

When Ned finishes the song she opens her eyes again, looking down into her son's face. His lashes have fluttered down; his lips are slightly parted. He is perfect and beautiful, and if Ned had given up on her, she would never have known this joy.

"'You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray.'" She leans down and kisses Andrew's forehead, so softly, then looks up at Ned, seated beside the Christmas tree like the best present she could never ask for as she sings the last words. "'You'll never know, dear, how much I love you. So please don't take my sunshine away.'"


End file.
